Assembled readers, fellow bloggers, distinguished friends …First, let me say what a great honour it is to have been asked to write this blogpost about commencement speeches. Where I come from, there isn't really any equivalent to this quintessentially American phenomenon; and as a result, every year, thousands of young British people collect their degrees and head into the world in a dangerously uninspired state – not knowing, for example, whether or not they should say "yes" to life, or follow their hearts, or dare to be different.With these lost souls in mind above all, let's review what we've learned from 2012's speeches so far. By now, you'll have seen Barack Obama's, and maybe Mitt Romney's, and perhaps even Neil Gaiman's, which went justifiably viral.But ... Continue reading →
Mountaineer Joe Simpson's latest test of endurance – a Twitter row with angry GCSE students over his book Touching the Void, an account of his adventure in the Andes. Even the most successful authors have to suffer the occasional fit of spite from critics and readers. Few, however, have to contend with the twin indignities of being branded a "crevasse wanker" and having their accounts of preternatural mountain endurance rubbished by sulky teens.Fortunately, as befits a man who has outshuffled the Grim Reaper in both the Andes and the Himalayas – and who chose an automated alcohol dispenser as his luxury on Desert Island Discs so that he could drink himself to death rather than endure a protracted insular exile – Joe Simpson is not ... Continue reading →
His death was announced by the Zenith Electronics Corporation, where Mr. Polley began his career in the stockroom before rising through the engineering ranks to invent the device, called the Flash-Matic, in 1955. “Just think!,” an advertisement breathlessly proclaimed that year. “Without budging from your easy chair you can turn your new Zenith Flash-Matic set on, off, or change channels. You can even shut off annoying commercials while the picture remains on the screen.” The Flash-Matic remote, which worked like a flashlight, was shaped like a snub-nosed revolver. The shape was a considered choice on Mr. Polley’s part, as he explained in 2000, letting viewers in the age of ubiquitous TV westerns “shoot out” commercials. Flash-Matic made the TV audience less captive, though also less ... Continue reading →
HOW TO MAKE MEN LIKE YOU Ever wonder why so people are liked by everyone they meet Usually because they work at it—even though their effort may not be apparent to you. They are the ones who take the extra trouble to get a stranger’s name right, to remember a co-workers birthday, to telephone or write their thanks for a favor. But many people in their eagerness to be liked or, as the case may be, romanced by a handsome young man, make the wrong kind of effort. It’s a mistake to strive too hard to make a good impression. Don’t be so busy putting yourself across that you neglect to give the other person the recognition he craves. If you want to be really ... Continue reading →
